Achtung Baby Or Rumple Foreskin!

10/08/2010 15:44
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Updated
22 May 2015

Suze Nowak
Parentdish UK

I tried to avoid it, truly I did but it was either my obsession with the UK Election or my daughter's obsession with penises. Given that this is Parentdish and not Private Eye, the penis fixation it is. And yes, I promise not to fall for the temptation to mention hung parliaments or proportional anythings!

It happened rather suddenly with no warning but I don't believe obsession to be an unjust description of Finje's current fascination.That said, I'm wondering if penis envy would be more accurate.

We embrace openness and broad-mindedness in our home. Finje sees us both in the buff frequently and has never really shown any excess interest. Our intention being to raise a child with no neurosis when it comes to the human body. The German word for man's best friend is, lamentably, penis. This means that when Finje pipes up with one of her inopportune genitalia comments, my usual sigh of relief that she has used a word private to our family, is not forthcoming. The issue is not her infatuation with all that is "bottom end", as my grandmother used to say, more that she has decided she wants one.

A penis that is. She chose to regale me of that fact of course, in the supermarket. Getting bored waiting for me to decide which of the hundreds of cheeses-which-all-taste-the-same she started to wander off. Deep in thought over my monumental decision, she had regrettably made it to the next aisle before I noticed and called to ask her where she was going. Answer? "I'm going to buy a penis!" The elderly lady standing next to her very nearly dropped her frozen sauerkraut. I managed to remove her from the delicate ears of further elderly Damen before, unperturbed, she followed up with, "Also, some glue to stick it on with. Where is the glue mummy?"

It didn't stop there. The next day, cycling home from Kindergarten I asked the innocent and standard question about what she had done that morning. It turned out there had been some discussion about germs. From what I could decipher, it stemmed from Ulf sneezing in the face of some unfortunate and demonstrating utter confusion as to why this was deemed unacceptable. Preparing myself for a discussion about the merits of cleanliness I was caught slightly off guard by the next question:

"Is a germ smaller than a penis then?"

As fascinating as politics may be, there is nothing quite as captivating as he ponderings of a four year old.